Dengue is a serious tropical disease caused by the mosquito-borne dengue virus (DENV). Performant, rapid, and easy-to-use assays are needed for the accurate diagnosis of acute DENV infection. We evaluated the performance of three prototype assays developed for the VIDAS® automated platform to detect dengue NS1 antigen and anti-dengue IgM and IgG antibodies. Positive and negative agreement with competitor enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) was evaluated in 91 Lao patients (57 adults, 34 children) with acute DENV infection. The VIDAS® NS1 assay showed the best overall agreement (95.6%) with the competitor NS1 ELISA. Both VIDAS® NS1 and NS1 ELISA assays also demonstrated high sensitivity relative to DENV RNA RT-PCR set as gold standard (85.7% and 83.9%, respectively). In contrast, NS1 RDT was less sensitive relative to DENV RNA RT-PCR (72.7%). The overall agreement of VIDAS® IgM and IgG assays with the competitor assays was moderate (72.5% for IgM ELISA, 76.9% for IgG ELISA, and 68.7% for IgM and IgG RDT). In most analyses, test agreements of the VIDAS® assays were comparable in adults and children. Altogether, the VIDAS® dengue prototypes performed very well and appear to be suitable for routine detection of dengue NS1 antigen and anti-dengue IgM/IgG antibodies.
Keywords: DENV; ELISA; IgM and IgG antibodies; NS1 antigen; VIDAS®; dengue diagnosis.